Sabbath

The last chapter of Seven has started a little early in the Womack household.

(I always was an overachiever.)

The title of chapter seven is "stress," which means we will try to reduce our stress by adding resting and prayer to our lives. The author's family started being intentional about taking a Sabbath, beginning with a family meal Saturday evening and continuing through Sunday. She also committed to pausing to pray seven times throughout the day.

While the idea of honoring the Sabbath intrigued me, what inspired me to actually implement the practice was spending an evening with some dear, new friends who live in intentional community in downtown Marion. Residents of the Incarnation House invited me to join them for a Sabbath meal several weeks ago. (Shout out to Amanda, Annie, Emily, Jared and Ryan!)

I was told that they "kind of dress up" (what does that even mean?) and have dinner together, followed by some type of activity (an opportunity to interact and build community).

So, I got "kind of dressed up" and went.

It was a perfect introduction to Sabbath.

Reading the liturgy.

Lighting the candle.

Passing the cup.

Breaking the bread.

Sharing a blessing. 

We ended the evening carving pumpkins together, talking and laughing.

It was a beautiful evening.

I invited them all to celebrate Lord's Day Dinner at my house the next weekend. They accepted.

We read.

We drank.

We ate.

We shared.

Another beautiful evening.

The next step was to involve the kids with Lord's Day. Providentially, a friend's family was also starting this tradition, so we combined our families for the evening, hoping the togetherness would add an extra measure of fun, convincing our kiddos that this was a positive change.

Let's just say that celebrating Lord's Day with six adults is slightly different than celebrating with six children under the age of ten.

We read.

We laughed.

We planned who drank so there would be no arguing about who had to drink after the others.

We tried not to laugh as the kids cringed at drinking after others (even though we wiped the cup.)

We broke bread.

We laughed about the gigantic pieces of bread the kids took.

We shared blessings: dogs, family, friends.

We ate.

We laughed some more.

It was loud and a little crazy.

It was beautiful.

Last Saturday was our family's first Lord's Day dinner on our own.

The kids asked if we could have someone (anyone!) over for Lord's Day, but it didn't work out.

So we sat.

Four around the table.

We set the table with our Lord's Day dishes (my great-grandmother's vintage Fiestaware).

We read the liturgy (four year-old Josiah echoed the words).

"The Lord himself is with us,"

"The Lord Himself is with us"

"to refresh us"

"to refresh us"

"and to strengthen us."

"and to strengthen us."

We drank juice (the children out of tiny plastic medicine cups which ended the "who goes last" discussion).

We broke bread (a slice of whole wheat sandwich bread because I forgot to get a loaf).

We shared blessings (dogs, family, friends).

We laughed and ate.

And it was beautiful.